BEIJING: Humanoid machines slowly picked up litter and sorted out bouquets of flowers on Tuesday in a demonstration of how robots might eventually be used to complete fiddly household tasks.

The event, hosted by startup X Square Robot on Tuesday in Beijing, was modest by the standards of an industry that has spent years showcasing robots that can sprint, flip and dance. But it pointed to a deeper shift under way: Chinese companies such as X Square Robot are trying to prove not what humanoids can do on stage but what value they can bring in the messy, unpredictable environments of everyday life.

“The hardware is largely there,” said Wang Qian, chief executive of startup X Square Robot, at the event. “But the brain hasn’t caught up.”

That gap is becoming increasingly apparent as companies shift from pre-programmed demonstrations to real-world deployment. Chinese humanoid robots can complete half-marathons faster than elite athletes, but tasks that seem simple to the average human tidying a cluttered room, loading a dishwasher, or folding clothes remain stubbornly hard for these machines.

“Why don’t marathon robots face this challenge? Because what they mainly contend with is a constant gravitational field,” said CEO Wang. “But when we manipulate things with our hands, if we are off by 0.1 millimetres, the whole task may fail.” Repetitive actions such as running only require a robot to be trained on a relatively simple dataset.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2026